Founded in 2005, the Silmarillion Writers' Guild exists for discussions of and creative fanworks based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion and related texts. We are a positive-focused and open-minded space that welcomes fans from all over the world and with all levels of experience with Tolkien's works. Whether you are picking up Tolkien's books for the first time or have been a fan for decades, we welcome you to join us!
New Challenge: Bollywood This month's challenge offers songs, films, and tropes from Bollywood, the world's largest film industry based out of India, as prompts for fanworks.
Cultus Dispatches: Fandom Chocolate … or Authors Love Comments Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data provides insight into how comments benefit authors and which authors are most impacted by a lack of comments, with a digression on authors' perspectives one-click feedback like kudos.
A Sense of History: Passing Ships As Tolkien's characters in various texts gaze out to the sea, what do they see? What is brought by the ships coming out of the West?
Beta-Reader List Now Available The beta-reader list and profiles have been moved into our new system and are available again.
Nimruzimir, a natural philosopher recently out of his apprenticeship, hardly considers himself very important to anyone, least of all his colleagues. When his strange, prophetic fits bring him to the attention of the High Priest, however, he may find that his existence is less superfluous than…
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously…
My newly drawn map of Aman, as complete as I could make it.
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Bollywood
Prompts this month are films, songs, and tropes from India's dazzling film industry, Bollywood. Read more ...
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Holiday Party
No matter if you're in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, it's a time of year to think about holidays. Whether you're bundling up in blankets or slipping a swimsuit into your suitcase, we invite you to an SWG holiday party! Read more ...
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that authors view comments as driving their motivation to create fanfiction. However, perception of comments by authors is part of a larger shift in fandom around how and how often fans interact with each other.
The arrival and departure of ships across the Great Sea carries mythic significance for the peoples of Middle-earth. The image of ships crossing out of and back into a mysterious West appears as well in Beowulf and is alluded to in Tolkien's tower analogy in his lecture "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," where the tower allows those who climb it to observe the passage of the ships.
Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data shows that while most authors self-identify as taking their craft seriously, a growing subset of authors may be pushing that norm.
He and Diamond were visiting, though Pippin had been disappearing every afternoon, and taking Frodo and Elanor and most other lads and lasses in the neighborhood with him—though why they couldn’t use Pippin’s own pony, Sam couldn’t imagine.
So gathered they were to Bree, what lieutenants who could be spared, from their scattered watches west and east, for their chieftain had returned from his long sojourn in lands godless and mountains strange.
Aragorn returns from the South to tells his tales. Halbarad listens.
Elrond Week 2024
Elrond Week is a fandom event dedicated to Elrond Peredhel that will run from July 10th to July 16th on Tumblr.
July challenge at tolkienshortfanworks posted
The tolkienshortfanworks challenge for July has been posted to the Dreamwidth community. The thematic challenge is: original character or unnamed canon character; the formal challenge: fixed length of multiple of 50 words. New participants welcome.
Teitho June/July Challenge: Mentor
The June/July prompt for the Teitho challenge is "mentor" and invites fanworks about this relationship in Tolkien's works.
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Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.
Yes, a fellow poet! I really enjoyed your piece and its ability to reflect a perspective little explored in the annals of Arda. I also to must praise your ability to capture art in simplisity, depth in brevity, and reason through one of the more complicated of Tolkien's literary inventions. Keep up the good work and continue writing!
This story contains a lot to recommend it. The voice of the narrator and the beliefs expressed remind me of Native Americans and of Australian indigenous people. I am not sure how much the more isolated groups of the Avari actually knew much about the return of Noldor or realized its direct or indirect effect on their day-to-day life. One point that fascinates me is mentioned in the notes to the Quendi and the Eldar that the first Avari that the returning Noldor are said to have encountered are of the group who were their historical brethren, sharing common roots within the original second group, the Tatyar. I am intrigued to know more about the narrator, if he was of that grouping. I would love to read a story with plot and characterization that tells his story. Perhaps he is reacting not simply to received information but to an actual face-to-face encounter with some of those exiled Noldor.
I'm still figuring out the SWG site, so bear with late replies...
Actually, I was aiming at a more biased POV :). The narrator hasn't met the Noldor--she is actually young (though not very young) and doesn't yet understand that there are two sides to the story. But she's old enough to understand the ancestral wisdom passed down to her, and to 'feel' the power of the land (Yes, you're right. I had Native Americans in mind when I was writing this, but also the natives of my country, the Veddhas). But she's also exceptionally wise for her age.
Dialogue is not my storng point, but I do have an idea simmering in my mind, when my narrator meets Celegorm...(And the sparks fly, obviously, both being who they are)
Lovely - there are certainly some lessons here for today. Also a nice change from the fanon notion that the Sindar abandonned or slew those who escaped from Morgoth. Sorry, no. (Of course, the Sindar aren't Avari, but they did stay behind.) I'm not much of an Ayn Rand fan, either.
Thank you. (It was certainley a surprise to post a story and find that another story has reviews I didn't realize it had!)
That particular fanon, I suspect, comes from the general misrepresenation of Sindar and Avari. Of course, in times of war, it would have been a necessity, but otherwise? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that Melian could have put her power to good use and weeded out any spies.
Ayn Rand...her works are too one-sided for me. She tends to forget 'the other side' of the story. That being said, I do agree with her sometimes (especially in Atlas Shrugged. It was The Fountainhead that irked me, though even there, she has a valid point).
I had no idea that the narrator was a woman. My assumption is based upon the prejudicial treatment within the original text itself (male unless stated otherwise). I wonder if I missed a clue? Oh, I just looked up the Veddha people online. Oh, yes. I really, really like the idea of using them as a model here. "The Veddhas are proud of their distinct sylvan heritage and call themselves Vanniyalette, 'those of the forest'." Could not be more perfect.
That's because there wasn't anything obvious in the text. But I envision my character as a 'wise woman' (we know that the Edain had those, so why not the Avari? Because, keeping with Tolkien's world, the Edain must have learnt that from somewhere). Or a magician, or shaman. Whatever you call it, it's clear that most nomadic people had a special position for those who 'communed with spirits or the land'. Except, in this case, the Avari girl really can feel the 'voice' of the earth (the Music of the Ainur, as it were).
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Why am I burdening other people with my headcanon?
Actually, 'Vanniyalette' is less accurate than 'Wanniyala-aetto', but that's just nitpicking. I wasn't aware of those lines, but what really stuck with me was a speech by the then Veddha Chief, Uru Warige, that we learnt back in elementary school. I can't find the exact words right now, because my house is a mess, but even translated into English, it was just beautiful. And I unconciously modeled my story on that, I think. (And also because of a whole lot of irony regarding the tangled history of my country)
Comments
The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.